


The Education of Uzumaki Naruko

by Chic_Goth_Girl



Series: Ringing Bells [1]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Alternate Universe - Pre-Canon, BAMF Uzumaki Naruto, F/M, Female Uzumaki Naruto, Fuuinjutsu Master Uzumaki Naruto, Gender or Sex Swap, Rule 63, Smart Uzumaki Naruto
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-10
Updated: 2020-12-11
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:34:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27988524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chic_Goth_Girl/pseuds/Chic_Goth_Girl
Summary: A female Naruto's divergent path in life starts earlier than one might expect. Even her Academy years are, from the beginning, very different. And they shape her up into a very different kind of shinobi.Tagged pairings represent the overall pairings for the series.Updated daily. Floating Timeline in, as in canon, a world that is modernized in every way but for transportation and weaponry.
Relationships: Gaara/Uzumaki Naruto, Uchiha Sasuke/Uzumaki Naruto
Series: Ringing Bells [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2049933
Kudos: 79





	1. Flowers and an Abacus

Chapter One: Flowers and an Abacus

At about six years old, I was standing in a line of other six year old girls out on a big dirt lane near a flower field. It was a colorful, sunny spring day. The bees were buzzing, the birds were chirping, the butterflies were fluttering, the whole hundred Konoha village yards. In front of us was a woman who was standing beside a tree on the lane. She had frizzy dark hair, dignified spectacles, and classy, modest dark clothes. Standing beside her was the leader of all of Konoha village, the guy I called Grandpa Hokage — but most people called him the Third Hokage. He was a tiny little old man, swimming in his ceremonial red and white robes and conical hat, a wood pipe hanging from his lips near his silver goatee.

"You are all here," he said, smiling proudly, "because you have elected to start training as kunoichi — or female ninja, in this case of Konoha village — in the seductive arts at six years old, rather than the standard eight. In other words, you have elected to start training as a seductress — the one thing a female kunoichi does that a male shinobi cannot — two years early."

I straightened, beaming hard.

"Now! I have one thing to say before I hand you off to your new instructor, Suzume," said Grandpa Hokage. "Uzumaki Naruko! Please step forward."

Everyone turned to stare at me in surprise as I stepped forward slowly. I had golden blonde pigtails, big bright blue eyes, a heart-shaped face with the cheeks decorated in whisker markings, and I was wearing a little orange dress. I hoped I was being given some sort of commendation, but I doubted it was anything that good.

Grandpa Hokage's watery brown eyes gentled. He looked sad as he said, "Suzume has refused to teach you the seductive and kunoichi arts." I turned to stare upward with big eyes at Suzume, who stared coldly down at me. The other little girls began whispering behind their hands. My face flushed as tears filled my eyes and my lower lip trembled despite myself.

"Fine!" I said, determined not to cry, fists clenched. "Someday I'll be a better shinobi than you, anyway! Just you watch!"

And as I meant to storm away, Grandpa Hokage said gently, "Naruko. Don't you want to know who has offered to teach you instead?"

I turned back around to him slowly, not sure I had heard right. "I… get another teacher?" I said questioningly.

"Of course." Grandpa Hokage smiled wide. "We must have you grow up to be a big and strong shinobi. You are getting you own Special Jounin ranked private tutor — a rank even higher, I might add, than Suzume's."

Suzume looked away bitterly as my whole face lit up. "Lucky," I heard one little girl mutter to herself distinctly.

"Who is it, who is it?!" I demanded, running back up to Grandpa Hokage, my previous heartache forgotten. "Ha! I bet she's really cool! Screw you, Master Four-Eyes!" I pointed at Suzume, whose dark eyes flashed with fury.

"Naruko -!" Grandpa Hokage began to scold me, but just then chaos erupted.

Kunai knives arced down out of the air and pinned themselves to different branches of the tree behind Suzume. They held up a white sign, which flew down in a seemingly magical gust of wind. A woman landed in front of the sign, put a hand on her hip, raised her fist in the air, and shouted, "Uzumaki Naruko, _come with me!"_

There was a lot to take in. The woman had leg armor that made her shinobi shoes look like combat boots. She wore a long trench coat and a tiny little dark dress made entirely of mesh wire armor. Her purple hair was tied up behind her head in a hair clip. She was curvy, she was hot, she was sexy. The sign behind her, I couldn't read yet — being only six — but one helpful girl nearby read it out for me.

"Amazing Kunoichi Arts Instructor Mitarashi Anko Is Here?" she said dubiously to her friend.

"Are you really a seductress?" one girl said out loud, voicing everyone's thoughts.

Anko turned to glare at her — and then she straightened and smiled, slowly and wickedly. "Look at you, all cute and innocent," she purred, walking towards the girl. "I know what you want to be!" she said in a cutesy voice. "You want to be pretty —,"

"Well, yeah."

"And graceful —,"

"Well, yeah."

"And feminine —,"

"Yes?"

"And get the guy, right?!" said Anko in a mock excited voice. Her eyes flashed dangerously, and I was one of the only girls determined not to be scared. That was the first time I thought this might just work.

"… Yes?" said the little girl hesitantly.

"But that's not the point of the seductive arts," said Anko, and the cutesy persona fell to reveal a dangerous grin underneath. "The point of the seductive arts is to drag the guy forward, seemingly by enchantment. He knows what's coming, but he can't do anything to stop it. You pin him in the metaphorical corner — _and then you kill him._ Because guys are usually the most powerful ones in our world. _And your job is to take that power away from him._

"But have fun, ladies, with the woman who's going to teach you how to pour tea and talk to you about honor. I'll see _you_ when it's time to prepare you for the battlefield!" She tapped the little girl on the nose, beamed, stood up, and walked back to me. "Let's go, kid."

I gave one single glance over my shoulder as the little girl started crying, and Grandpa Hokage heaved a great sigh, and Suzume just looked offended. Then I turned and ran off after Mitarashi Anko.

"Hey! Master Anko! I have a question," I said.

"Oh, really? You're not scared of me after that?" she asked.

"I didn't decide to be a shinobi so I could get scared the first time someone talked about death," I said defiantly. "I have a question."

"Sure, go for it."

"Why did you decide to take me in and tutor me? You're going to be my first educational arts tutor as well, right?"

"You've got it."

"So why…?" I began, shrugging. I was puzzled. "I mean, nobody in Konoha likes me. I live on my own. I was raised by ANBU Black Ops. It just seems weird that somebody would volunteer."

"Looking a gift horse in the mouth?" she said with grim amusement.

"Sure," I said. "I guess."

"Good," she said firmly, turning to me. Her eyes were a light, flashing amber brown. "Keep doing that. Never let anybody in the shinobi world just hand you something — not without wondering what's in it for them. Don't let anybody fuck you. Got it?"

This seemed important. "Got it!" I said, straightening.

"Now. I agreed to tutor you because I felt a kinship," said Anko. "Nobody in the village likes you."

"Whoa. You're not denying it?" I said, stopping her, surprised. "That's what everyone else does! Everybody pretends they don't know what I'm talking about."

"That sounds infuriating," Anko admitted, and there was genuine sympathy in her voice. "No. I know nobody likes you. I'll admit it."

"Do you know… _why…?"_ I tried tentatively.

"I can't tell you."

I thought about this. "You _won't_ tell me why no one likes me? Or you _can't_ tell me why no one likes me? Or you don't know? It's one of the three," I finally decided.

Anko's smirk had widened with every word. "I can't tell you," she finally said crisply, "why no one likes you."

"… Got it," I said firmly, nodding. "I appreciate the honesty!" And I bowed to her, the first time I had ever done so. She looked surprised when I straightened.

"No problem," she finally said, sounding impressed. "But I'll let you in on a little secret. Nobody likes me, either."

"Really?" I said, surprised.

"That's right. They call me snake lady. But when it comes to the seductive arts, I'm the best Konoha's got," said Anko.

"They call me fox girl," I said curiously. "I could be the best Konoha's got!"

"That's the idea. Student surpasses the Master and all that."

"Why do they call you snake lady?" I asked, blinking big, innocent eyes.

She leaned down. "Because once I had a Master," she said. "And he was the master of snakes. I trusted him — right up until the moment he experimented on me and my fellow students, and left us for dead while running from the law in Konoha village. He's a rogue now — what's called a missing nin. I was the only student who survived. People are scared of him, so people are scared of me. And they call me snake lady."

"But you don't have anything to do with him anymore!" I protested.

"That's right. Sometimes people dislike you for reasons that don't make any sense," warned Anko. "But that's how you know you can trust me. Because I would never — _ever_ — betray my students in the way my Master betrayed me. And I would never — _ever_ — hold it against them that the village doesn't really like them all that much.

"Do you understand?"

"… Yeah! I understand!" I brightened. "And now I get a really great Master!"

Anko smiled. "That's right," she said brightly, tapping me on the nose. She straightened and we started walking together again.

"So what are we doing first?" I asked.

"Flower arrangement," said Anko.

"But… the flower field's that way," I said, puzzled, pointing back over my shoulder.

"I know it is, Naruko." Anko's smile was mysterious. "Come with me."

-

Anko sat us down in a big empty classroom filled with tiny school desks. We pulled up two desks to face each other. "We'll start here," she said. "Because the point of flower arrangement — or, as it's called by practitioners, _ikebana_ — is not actually to make a pretty bouquet or arrangement. How many men do you know that would be bowled over by a pretty bouquet of flowers?"

"Not many," I admitted, thinking about it. "I think that would more impress a girl. Maybe guys should try this!" I said, grinning.

"These are traditionally gender neutral arts — either kind of person can technically practice them. But that's not my point," said Anko. "The point of an ikebana arrangement is to be a work of art. To tell a story.

"Let me give you an example.

"Once I had to seduce a man who had become famous as a shipping Captain. He had lost the love of his life a number of years ago and was now filled with sorrow. So one day, in his quarters, I left an arrangement. It was a sad, beautiful display, full of grief and heartbreak, lovely and exquisite, with weeping willow tree branches and delicate, dying white flowers — white being the traditional color of death. I centered it all inside a vase that was blue with intricate wave patterns, indicating a love for the sea. It was a living monument to his life — his love of the sea holding in his adoration for his passed love. I left with it a simple card saying, _I just thought you could use this today,_ and then I signed my name at the bottom.

"He was calling on me within the week," said Anko. "Why? Because I had told a story. And I had touched something inside of him.

"There's another cool thing about ikebana — and really about all the kunoichi arts — that's important to keep in mind. Each person has a kind of hidden personality in each art. As you make more things, your personality, distinctive style, and unique way of doing this art starts to form. And it's not always what you'd expect from the daily personality of the person who's making the artwork. A cheerful person could have a very Gothic personality in drawing, for example. So as you do this, you not only get to tell stories — in pretty much all your arts — but you get to find your own distinctive artistic style — in pretty much all your arts.

"So. Are you ready to get started?"

"Yeah!" I said immediately, excited and enthused. The way Anko said this, it sounded amazing. "Let's do it!"

"Okay!" she cheered, putting her fists in the air. Anko had as much enthusiasm for things as I did. "So, the first thing we're going to do is: I'm going to give you a scenario. You always have to know who you're trying to seduce, okay? Psychological profilers go out into the field before seducers, and they make _tons_ of money because their job is to provide the seductress with a psychological profile ahead of the seduction. I'm going to give you a profile. And then you're going to make an arrangement for that person. Now, do you want a hard one or an easy one?"

"A hard one!" I said firmly, pounding the desk.

"I like the way you think," said Anko. "Okay! You are trying to seduce a man who has spent his entire existence trying to be a living weapon. In a world ruled by the shinobi, men like this are very common. He has spent his entire life defined by what he can do and how well he can do it, refusing to acknowledge all emotional response. Your job is to seduce _that_ man. And your job is to seduce him with a flower arrangement."

She smiled and sat back, waiting.

"Okay. This can be done. I just need to figure out how," I decided. "I take it I should start with a concept? An idea?"

"You've got it right," said Anko, smirking.

"Okay. Let me try to close my eyes and picture it. A living weapon." I closed my eyes and thought. "Well, I've spent my entire life wondering why I exist. Maybe that sounds melodramatic… but I have. When you don't matter to anybody, you start wondering what the point is to your life at all. Connection is what makes life worthwhile. So… is it that his life isn't worthwhile? No. That's not right. It's that… it's that he can only feel a connection to other people through his ability to be a weapon!"

My eyes flew open.

"Yeah, that's it!" I said excitedly. "So he wants other kinds of connection. He just doesn't know he does — and he doesn't know how to ask for them. Because his entire life has been all about battle. So I have to make something that would hit hard with him.

"Okay. So, what about… an outer shell around the arrangement that is entirely devoted to brutal images, like swordsmanship and battle. And then a center, half-hidden inside the arrangement… that is full of red colors and love images and _passion._ Is that right?" I asked excitedly.

"The interesting thing about art, Naruko, is that there is no one right answer," said Anko thoughtfully. "There are many possible answers, many possible ways to reach the same goal or solution. Is your concept one way of doing it? Yes, I believe it is. Especially for a first-timer, it's actually very clever.

"So, next step! The materials." She stood, walked over to a nearby closet, and threw the doors open. It turned out to be a walk-in closet, and it was covered in an awe-inspiring amount of what must be ikebana materials. Vases of all different kinds. Flowers, plants, and tree branches of all different kinds. "Your job," she said, "is not even technically to arrange flowers. As I hinted earlier, it's to arrange a plant-based sculpture. You can use scissors to cut different parts of the plant to make the arrangement more effective. It's common to use a sake wine based spray on the arrangement to keep it lasting and alive-looking for as long as possible.

"So. To plant-sculpting."

I walked over next to her, eyes wide and awed. Then I became serious. "Okay," I said determinedly, fist in palm. "To business."

I chose, for the outer shell, a great deal of ghostly white and blood red plants reminiscent of things like blood and ghosts. I chose some silvery tree branches to represent swords and blades. That was the outer shell. Then, for the inner center, I chose a wealth of plants that resembled a garden — rich greenery, bright colors, vivid reds and blues and yellows. Then, for the very center, I chose a single sprig of flowers actually shaped like little bleeding red hearts. For the vase, I picked a wide bronze one because it reminded me of a practical suit of battle armor.

I came back to my desk with it all, and Anko said, "Now, there are different styles of ikebana and you will learn them all. For this one, what do you think?"

"The hardest one!" I said.

But Anko shook her head. "Once you have an art project, you have to put the art project first — even over your own need to seem the best," she taught. "What kind of style would the _project_ need? Let's look at some examples."

She took me through geometric drawings of different ikebana styles. At last, I decided, "That sparse, subtle style. It should be… quiet, this one. I imagine him as a quiet guy at heart. So he shouldn't have an arrangement that screams at him, especially not with something this… emotional."

And then we sat down at our desks, and Anko took me through making the sculpture. She showed me how to do the exact measurements and calculations so every part of my arrangement matched the exact style I had chosen to go for. She showed me how to arrange it all just so in the vase, how to carefully break the branches to make them seem straighter and more sword-like, how to steady the base of the arrangement, and then how to spray it all with a sake based spray at the end.

She let me take a picture of my first arrangement, and there it all was — finished.

"You have a very whimsical, imaginative, even strange style when it comes to flower arrangement," said Anko thoughtfully.

"Is that good?"

"There is no bad or good with art. There are simply different ways of doing things," said Anko. "Now, let's get to your first educational lesson for the day."

But that went much slower. "I don't understand why you're not getting this!" Anko said at our desks, and we were both frustrated. "You did just fine with the ikebana calculations, and those were much more complicated!"

"Yeah, but those had a _diagram,"_ I complained.

She paused. "… And that helped?"

"Well, yeah," I said, frowning.

She paused, looked at me — and then said, "Wait here." She left the room. When she came back a few minutes later, she had several sets of materials. "These are flashcards, for reading and writing. This is an abacus, for mathematics. This is a series of terms made into song on a mixed tape, for science. And this is a series of flow charts, for history and strategy," she said. "These are physical diagrams, for geometry.

"I want to try something."

She took me through every basic subject we would be studying — and with these new tools, magically, I flew by in bright, shining colors. I barely got a single problem wrong, and at the end I sat back and said, "A!" triumphantly. "This is so easy," I said excitedly. "What did you do?"

"You're an alternative learner," she realized, smirking and sitting back. "It means you're not stupid. You will just always learn and understand better if you make it into a song, or a picture, or a physical set of activities in your mind. When you're learning, try to make learning into a kind of game. Make it a picture. Make it a mental game. Make it a song. Try to connect the different pieces that way. And always do that when studying." She leaned forward earnestly. "That way you won't be a stupid girl. And you don't want to be a stupid girl, do you?"

"No!" I shook my head. "Definitely not!"

"Exactly. So do learning the other ways," she said, smiling. "With physical games, pictures, and songs. That's the start of your academic education. That's the first thing you need to know.

"It's a good thing I caught it now. Otherwise, you might have fallen behind everyone else."

Master Anko, I thought even at six years old, was pretty amazing.

-

We continued our academic lessons over the following weeks. With this new way of studying, I quickly became a six-year-old A student. I learned to find a kind of satisfaction, pleasure, and happiness in learning — a kind I might never have found otherwise. I took pride in how smart I was, in my good brain.

"All A's again," Anko was marveling. "You're especially good in strategy and tactics exercises. You know, I think you might be crouching tiger, hidden genius, kid."

I grinned, happy. I had learned to live for these sessions.

"And you have now mastered every style of basic ikebana arrangement I could teach you."

We turned to look at a series of Polaroids attached to clothespins hanging across the classroom. Each showed a different ikebana flower arrangement.

"Your whimsical, imaginative, strange way of arranging flowers has really started to flourish," Anko congratulated me. "As has your ability to psychologically profile subjects and make art for them."

I beamed. "There are ikebana arrangements covering my apartment now," I admitted. "Flowers everywhere."

"Good," said Anko positively. "We will keep studying ikebana and academics, but now the focus will turn to something else — since you're shaping up to be an A student who's good at ikebana flower arranging. We now turn our focus to the next art, one of my personal favorites.

"Tea ceremony. For seductive purposes."


	2. Meditation and Green Tea Art

Chapter Two: Meditation and Green Tea Art

For tea ceremony, Anko took me into the next set of rooms attached to the original classroom I had gotten used to for academics and ikebana. This room was decorated to be a room at a traditional teahouse. There was an entryway, a main room covered in tatami matting and surrounded by shoji screens, with a fire pit in the middle of the floor. Then there was a sliding shoji door to a tiny garden just outside, a Zen-style one filled with green moss, stepping stones, rounded bushes, arching trees, and trickling little creeks.

"Follow me," said Anko, and she took me through a side door and into an almost identical set of rooms — but for the garden outside. This time the garden was desert-like, filled with eucalyptus trees, rosebushes, cacti, pomegranate trees, and long stretches of red, yellow, and brown clay-like earth. Everything was spare and harsh but beautiful in this particular garden, and there were pebble and rock formations in place of running water.

"Why the two sets of rooms?" I asked curiously.

"As you know, Naruko," said Anko, "if you go just out the Konoha village walls, and five miles in an eastward direction, you cross a country boundary line and come upon the village of Suna. It's an easy daily walk for a shinobi. Konoha is the Hidden Village of Fire Country, and Suna is the Hidden Village of Wind Country just five miles away — effectively, just next door. Suna is surrounded by tall mountains that create their own surrounding weather system. They have a desert environment, whereas we have a forest environment.

"Since Suna is just next door, Konoha finds it prudent to teach their ninja how to do tea ceremony in both kinds of environments — in a Konoha kind of environment, the green garden, and in a Suna kind of environment, the desert garden. Get it?"

"I think so," I said thoughtfully. "Does nature matter a lot in tea ceremony?"

"It does. Let's go back into the main room and I'll explain."

We knelt in the shoji and tatami room next to the green garden, on mats across from each other.

"There are several elements of tea ceremony that make it artistic and individualized," Anko taught. "There will be a traditional scroll hung up somewhere in the tea ceremony room. It can be a calligraphy piece, a poem, an ink painting. There will also be a flower arrangement in an alcove of the tea ceremony room. This should, of course, conform to the kinds of plant-life you find yourselves surrounded by. So in Suna, you would choose a desert arrangement. In Konoha, you would choose what we might call a more traditional arrangement — though of course someone from Suna wouldn't see it that way. Even the pre-prepared meal to go with the tea can be decorated in a kind of design or motif. All these different artistic choices should blend together in one unified effect — they should all be telling a different part of the same artistic message. That's part of what makes it an art."

"So… what kind of message should I tell? Just a nature one?" I said, puzzled.

"Good question," said Anko. "No, it should be more complicated than that. There are, for example, seasonal ceremonies, outdoor ceremonies, and evening ceremonies, which can be quite beautiful. Say you're doing a ceremony for a friend, and they're about to leave on a cold winter's journey, and you're doing an evening ceremony, and they're going to leave the next morning. Your artistic choices could be tailored around designs like cold, night, and the bittersweet feeling of friends parting. It should more along the lines of something like that. Keeping in line with the nature around you doesn't surprise anyone and ruin the effect. That's why the rule exists."

"So… aside from the artistic choices, what exactly is tea ceremony?" I asked.

"Here it is! The point!" said Anko, holding up a finger. "Tea ceremony is a ritual — sometimes hours long — revolving around the preparation and serving of matcha green tea. It is, with a couple of exceptions throughout the ceremony, completely silent. Everyone should be dressed nicely, but modestly. No jewelry, and no perfume or cologne because it would interfere with the incense that has been lit for the tea ceremony.

"The guests arrive, and then the smooth, memorized, ritualistic movements and sections of the tea ceremony begin. The whole ceremony is a give and take between host or hostess and guests. Everything is memorized and perfect, down to the last detail, every movement smooth and practiced, and as I said, most of it is done in complete silence. The guests have time to enjoy not only their tea — prepared for them by the hostess, you — but to enjoy and digest a whole meal besides. The ritual is supposed to be contemplative, even spiritual in nature."

I was making a face. "That doesn't sound like my thing," I said.

"Why not?" said Anko.

"Because I'm not good at being slow and patient. And I'm not good at not saying anything," I complained.

"Well, first, it's not that you're not _saying_ anything," said Anko.

"But you said —!" I protested.

"I said you had to be silent. I never said you couldn't say anything." She smiled mysteriously.

I just stared at her, puzzled.

"Naruko, no one will have taught you this, because you have no parents," said Anko. "But sometimes, what a person does is even more important than what they say. What their face says is even more important than what they say."

I thought about this.

"So," said Anko, "you have a hard job. You, as the hostess, have to communicate with your guest or guests without speaking — in complete silence. You have to use your facial expression and body language to talk. To say what you cannot say in words.

"And it's not just that you're being slow and patient — not with seductive tea ceremony. Every movement should be carefully designed to be alluring. That's why it has to be so slow and careful. Two parts of the body traditionally considered erotic that will be on full display will be your wrists and your neck. You have to be slow and alluring, and put these on for best effect through what is effectively a performance.

"There is one more thing you need to know. Just as you have a hidden personality in ikebana, you will have a hidden personality in tea ceremony. First, the way you decorate a room will be a style. But second, and perhaps more unexpectedly, how you choose to be silent, serene, and alluring will also be its own style. Each person has a different flavor to them when they practice tea ceremony. We are going to find yours."

"It sounds cool. But I still don't know about this whole being quiet and slow thing," I admitted, having reservations.

"Okay. Well, before we get started — you're going to be a guest at my tea ceremony first — why don't we try meditation? It might help us quiet our thoughts down," said Anko.

"Oh, great. I'll be even worse at that!" I said incredulously.

"You will be if you tell yourself you will be. That's a quitter's attitude, Naruko. Are you a quitter?" said Anko.

Suddenly a fire flared up within me. "Hell no I'm not!" I said. "Let's do this!"

"Okay." Anko smiled. "So sit cross-legged on the mat and… don't close your eyes yet.

"The point of meditation is not actually to sit without thought. That's a common misconception. If you sit there trying to think about nothing — first, you'll be very bored, and you'll get antsy. But second, the more you try to force yourself not to think, the more you're going to think. Have you ever noticed this about your brain? The harder you try not to have a thought, the more likely you are to have it. Right?

"So we're going to try something different. First, look around the room for a minute, in silence, but don't try to focus on any one particular thing. Try what we call a soft focus. Let your gaze loosen."

I did so, looking very loosely and easily around the room. This first part wasn't so bad.

"Now, close your eyes." I did so. "And focus on what you can hear around you — or smell, or feel. Let your other senses become sharper. Notice what you can tell from the world around you without using your eyes."

I heard birds outside. Water rushing. The wind through the trees. I could smell incense in the background. I could feel the hard tatami mat beneath my feet.

"Now, notice how your body feels. How is it doing? Notice how it feels, and then notice each part of your body in turn. Don't judge, don't try to change anything. Just notice."

My body felt a little tense. Slowly, I tried to relax it. I was a little hungry — nothing new there. I focused on each part of my body in turn, trying to relax each body part. It was almost… hypnotic…

"Now," said Anko's soft voice, which seemed to come from a greater distance, "notice how you're feeling emotionally. What thoughts and feelings are going through your head right now?"

 _This isn't so bad_ was warring with nervous feelings of _What if I'm not any good at this?_

"Now. Keep in mind that thoughts and feelings are rather like people passing in the street. Imagine a street full of people. Each person represents a feeling or a thought — and the street is very crowded. It's a busy day. This is your mind. Chasing a particular feeling or thought is… well, rather like chasing a person through the crowds. You can do that. But during meditation, sometimes it's nice to just sit off by the side of the road and watch the people — or the feelings and thoughts — pass by. And that's what you'll be doing," said Anko. "For now, you just sit off to the side of the road, and you watch your feelings and thoughts pass. Notice what each one is, but don't try to chase any of them. Most importantly, don't try to judge them, suppress them, or pretend they're not there.

"Just… notice. Just sit back and watch. Let the thoughts and feelings come… and then let them go. When you come back out of this state, not only will you feel calmer, but interestingly a solution to a problem will often present itself to you after you have let your mind rest like this for a few minutes."

So I did as she asked. I had something to focus on, and because of this it actually wasn't so bad. I noticed thoughts and feelings coming… and going… coming… and going… This was nice…

At last, Anko said, "Take a few deep breaths — and start to notice your body again. How is it feeling?"

Better, I immediately noticed. I slowly brought myself back to my body. It was like I'd forgotten it for a few minutes.

"Now notice what you can hear, feel, and smell around you."

I brought my senses back to the world outside, coming back to myself, sighing and shifting.

"Now, when you're ready… open your eyes. Soft focus… and then direct focus on me."

Slowly, I opened my eyes and came back to Anko, who was beaming at me. "When are we going to meditate?" I asked, my voice slower, softer, and calmer, my body sedate.

She grinned. "That _was_ meditation, kid. For fifteen whole minutes."

I perked up in disbelief. "… That's all there is to it?"

"Yup. Now, don't start jumping around," she warned me, holding up a hand when I perked up in triumph. "Because we want to keep this feeling for the tea ceremony, remember?"

"Right," I whispered. I relaxed again, calm and sedate.

"But that's a good exercise to practice," said Anko. "When you need to be calm and quiet, or when something's troubling you. That's the perfect time to meditate. Meditate when you feel you need to. That's the main rule.

"So. I'm going to show you a tea ceremony this afternoon. You will be my guest, just so you can see how it works. I will play the part of hostess. I have a whole ceremony prepared, just for you."

I started as a guest in the interior waiting room. I stored unneeded items such as my coat, and put on fresh tabi socks. The waiting room had its own tatami floor, and in an alcove was a hanging scroll, an ink poem alluding to the beginning of a journey. I was educated enough that I could basically read it by now.

There was a cup of roasted barley tea sitting nearby, and I sipped on it and waited. Then I proceeded by a side hallway to an outdoor waiting bench on the porch of the garden. I sat and waited, sipping my tea.

Anko came out. There was a silent bow between her and me. Then I proceeded to a stone basin where I ritually purified my hands and mouth with water. I continued along the porch and into the main room.

I removed my footwear and entered the tearoom through a small "crawling-in door." I sat seiza-style on a mat. I closed the door with an audible sound to alert Anko, who came in and said, "Welcome. Could you read the scroll?" she asked me. A surprising warm compassion and serenity had filled her, and she was smiling very nicely.

"Yeah. It was about the beginning of a journey," I said, smiling. "Mine, I guess?"

"That's right," she said. Then the talking portion was over.

She knelt across from me and laid a charcoal fire in the fire-pit to heat the water for the tea. As she was heating the water, she served me my food and the wagashi or sweets traditionally at the end. It was all full of fresh spring flavors and designs — I supposed, signifying a kind of beginning. Through it all, I closely observed her movements and expressions. The compassionate, serene warmth emanated from her and every little movement was alluring, every turn of the neck and wrists asking the guests if they might like… a little bit more.

It was true, I thought. She was an expert.

After the meal, I went back out to the garden and sat on the outdoor bench on the waiting porch. At the ring of a gong, I again purified myself at the basin and entered the tea-room. The tea-room had been swept, the scroll had been replaced by an ikebana arrangement full of tentative little blossoms just starting to bud, the tea-room's shutters had been opened, and now all the preparations were ready for the serving of the tea.

Still using those alluring, erotic expressions and movements, Anko ritually cleansed each tea-making utensil in front of me — the tea bowl, the whisk, and the tea scoop. She then placed them in the exact order she would need them, ritually and calmly, and she prepared the first tea — the "thick" tea.

A bow was exchanged between me and Anko as I received the tea-bowl. I drank the tea, and gave the bowl back to Anko. She cleansed the equipment again, then rekindled the fire and left the tea-room. She came back with higashi sweets, cushions for our comfort, and the air turned more casual. She prepared me an individual bowl of thin tea, and we sat and talked more casually for a few minutes.

"I can see what you mean," I told her. "You were saying a lot even though you weren't saying anything. And your persona was sweet and warm — like cinnamon. Your style seems to be a very simple, sweet style. But effective."

Anko smiled. "See? You're getting quite good at talking about this kunoichi arts business," she said, and I grinned.

After I finished my thin tea, Anko cleansed the utensils in preparation for putting them away. She allowed me to examine the utensils, very carefully in a special brocade cloth. Then she collected the utensils, and I left the main room. Anko bowed to me at the door —

"And — ceremony over!" she suddenly whooped, startling me by becoming straight and normally voiced again. I realized I had gotten used to and found a kind of comfort in the peace of tea ceremony. I told Anko this.

"It's very strange," I said thoughtfully. "I didn't really expect to like tea ceremony."

"I was the same way when I first started," she admitted. "Part of the reason I'm so good at teaching you is because we're a lot alike, Naruko." I beamed. "But tea ceremony actually ended up being my favorite traditional art. You just never know. Sometimes I think the loudest people end up finding the most peace in the right kind of quiet. Because you had something to focus on, didn't you?"

"Yeah. It wasn't boring," I admitted. "I guess that's the thing."

-

The next time, I was to try being the hostess, and I was nervous. I wanted to get this right.

"Your prompt, as I told you ahead of time," said Anko, "is that you are trying to seduce a heavily traumatized man — a man life has not been particularly kind to. Do you understand?"

"Yes!" I said. "Let's get started!"

I had prepared everything beforehand. I had requested an evening ceremony, with the screen slid aside to reveal the outdoors and paper lanterns lit in the corners of the room. Then I had arranged a scroll poem about the beginnings of sunrise peeking over a horizon. My ikebana arrangement, I tried to make as reassuring as possible, by filling it with a strange Wonderland variety of some of the most unusual soft white blossoms and plants I could find. My food was all homey comfort food, decorated with cute little emojis guaranteed to make a person smile.

The only thing I didn't know ahead of time was what kind of person I would be inside tea ceremony. What ended up happening surprised me. As I went through the rituals, I gave wide, peaceful, warm, sunshine smiles — but because I was supposed to be flirting, I added little bits of fire, hidden silent laughter, and teasing nestled deep inside all the sunny smiles. I balanced sunshine smiles and hidden little bits of teasing fire.

After the end of the ceremony, I told Anko what I had discovered about my persona.

"Yes, you're basically right," she said thoughtfully. "And in artistic sense within tea ceremony, you have a very sweeping, grand, silent but dramatic way of decorating. Everything is indelibly trademarked _you."_

I grinned.

-

"Well," said Anko, a few weeks later, back in the main classroom, "we have relentlessly practiced all types of tea ceremony in both kinds of environments, Suna and Konoha. I'd say you're ready to make tea ceremony a small part of your daily studies, and move on to mastering something else."

"Thanks to you, I've started drinking green tea and meditating," I accused her. "I'm becoming a lady."

"You say that like it's a bad thing," said Anko with a slow, sly grin, and I smiled back.


	3. First Fashion, First Dance

Chapter Three: First Fashion, First Dance

"Now, for this next part," said Anko, leading me into yet another anteroom, "we need… _this."_ She waved and smiled proudly.

"Wow," I said, my eyes wide and awed.

It was a dance studio. There was a long wooden floor, a wall of mirrors, and a barre opposite the wall of mirrors.

"The first kind of dance you'll be learning is traditional dance," said Anko. "But before we get into that, there's something else we need to talk about first."

"What's that?" I said, puzzled.

"What you'll be wearing to dance. See, these kinds of dance performances require traditional kimono," said Anko.

"But don't we only need to worry about that at performance time?" I said.

"Not exactly," Anko admitted. "See, women's kimono are pretty heavy — the obi, or sash, especially. So if you only try to wear that on performance day, your dance will be thrown all off kilter, because you're carrying all that extra weight, most especially around your middle. So, for our purposes, we have to buy you kimono to actually practice dancing in. If you practice dancing in kimono, there is no difference on performance day. Get it?"

"Yeah, I get it," I said curiously.

"Okay. So kimono are usually _crazy_ expensive," said Anko. "But you're in luck. As long as you're training as, or enlisted as, a shinobi, you get all your kimono bought and paid for by the Konoha village government. So I'll order you four kimono through my account — one for each season.

"Now. Kimono are so expensive because they're kind of like paintings on silk. Each one is incredibly individualized. That means you're actually going to write out the design for your own kimono! And I'm going to walk you through it."

She took out a pen, a sheet of paper, and a clipboard.

"So," she said matter of factly, "let's start with spring. When you think of spring, what do you think of?"

"I think of… running through the fields and the forests in the sunshine," I admitted.

"Okay… we can make that into a kimono. What would the actual robe part look like? If it were a painting?"

I thought about it. "Soft green grass," I said, "dotted with ladybugs and bees." Anko started writing. "Then, for the sash… I'm thinking of _running_ … so, maybe a bunch of birds flying off into a sky? Maybe the sky could be twilight."

Anko finished writing. "That's kimono one!" she said triumphantly. "When you picture summer, what do you think of?"

"Market festivals," I said, my eyes lighting up. "So… the robe could be a black sky lit up with fireworks. Then… the obi sash could be pink and dripping with what looks like melting ice cream."

Anko smiled and continued writing. I couldn't read her. She did that when she wanted me to figure out something for myself. "Autumn," she said. "What do you think of?"

"Coffee," I decided, "and crunching gold and orange and red colored leaves. So… the robe could be crumpled gold and orange and red colored leaves, in a kind of pattern… and then the obi could have a cocoa beans pattern."

"And… winter?" said Anko, still writing.

"That's easy. Snow angels," I said. "And Christmas lights. So… the robe could be falling snow dotted with little glowing lights, like tiny angels or fairies are falling beside the snow… against a dark blue backdrop. And… the obi sash could be in a Christmas lights pattern, and it could wrap around the falling snow!" I said triumphantly.

"Interesting," said Anko as we finished. "You have a very vivid, avant-garde way of looking at kimono design."

"I do? What does that mean?" I said, perking up.

"Avant-garde means new, or modern, or experimental," Anko explained. "It means you don't fall back on traditional old themes and patterns. That can be a good thing. You push forward into a modern age, which some would argue kimono needs in order to stay alive and thriving."

I smiled. Anko always managed to make me feel good about what I'd made. I was glad I'd gotten her over stinky old prissy Suzume.

"So. I will send off that order," she said. "I will show you how to put on kimono on your first dance practice day. Always take care of your kimono — like I said, they're expensive.

"But in the meantime… there are a couple of other things I wanted to show you."

Anko took me out of the classroom building for the first time that afternoon, and into downtown Konoha. The village was full of white-washed, rounded buildings with colorful, spiraling rooftops. A sandstone mountain carved with the faces of the Hokage loomed in the distance, next to the council building and plenty of modern billboards. Tall buildings with steampunk-esque accoutrements teetered next to small shops lined with cloth doorways and colorful paper lanterns. There were long gleaming glass avenues of expensive shops, museums, and art galleries, and there was plenty of planted greenery on the neatly paved roads.

We got our fair share of dirty looks, but I was used to them and I got the feeling so was Anko. We walked into a cosmetics and perfumes store, heavily scented and covered in glittering glass. Anko smiled, shark-like, at the clerk and fingered her kunai knife holster.

"I wanted to buy some things for my new student!" she said in a pointed, polite, bright and cheerful voice.

The woman shuddered, looked at the knife holster fingering, and then nodded quickly. "Whatever you say," she said in a shaky voice.

"Okay, Naruko," said Anko, going up to the counter, as the other clerks shifted away and gave us wary looks. "Here's the deal. As a kunoichi, you are introduced to makeup and perfume as a way to make yourself lovely very early on. And they do matter, from a seductive standpoint, when you're wearing kimono.

"So I thought this lady here could tell you about seasonal complexions." She waved to the clerk.

"O-Okay!" The woman straightened, looking wary, staring between us. I wondered for the first time if anyone had known Anko was training me until now. The idea that she would put such public faith in me made me want to pay attention closer. "So, for makeup, what shade looks good on you largely depends on what shade of skin you have?"

"Like skin color?" I asked, tilting my head. "Like, my skin is cream?"

"No," she said, shaking her head. "Some people have warm, pink skin undertones and some people have cool, blue skin undertones. Then, from there, some people have lighter skin and some people have darker skin. Even when they're of the same race," the woman explained. "You, for example, are easy. You have very warm, pink skin undertones and very light skin. That would make you a Spring in complexion. It also means light, bright spring colors will go more naturally with your coloring when it comes to makeup. They'll look better on you."

"Okay, so what have you got for spring?!" I said immediately, smacking the glass.

Anko grabbed my arm for the first time and put it down by my side. "Quieter, politer," she said, "and less… auctioneer."

I smiled sheepishly as the clerk let out a surprised, cheerful laugh. "She's got spirit!" the lady admitted, surprising me. I etched that into my mind: _Quieter, politer, less auctioneer._ Anko was the first person who had ever really taught me how to do things.

Then the clerk showed me a palette of makeup selections, and I had fun picking out my favorites. I ended up choosing an eyeshadow overtone mix of sky blue and dusty gold. I chose brown mascara and eyeliner. I chose a pinkish-peach bronzer and a shiny pink lip gloss. Anko and the clerk gave me a big mirror and showed me how to apply a full makeup look for the first time.

"See?" said Anko brightly at the end. "And, of course, for a kimono you would tie your hair back this way…"

She pulled my golden blonde hair behind my head, out of my pigtails, and for the first time someone showed me how to wear a more adult-looking ornate bun of hair behind my head.

"Finally," said Anko, "we choose perfume. It looks hellaciously expensive, but don't worry. If you buy one of the bigger, less concentrated bottles, and you only apply once a day, that bottle can last you for over a year. I like to buy myself a new bottle once every Christmas and New Years. That usually gets me by and I never have to worry about it any other time."

"For perfume," said the clerk, "what we do is, we spray these little tabs of paper —," She held one up. "— with different scents, and you choose your favorite. If your nose becomes too full of different perfumes — which does happen — we have what we call a palette cleanser. In this case, you breathe in this bowl of coffee beans for about half a minute. Now your nose is full of coffee, and you can go back to perfume."

So I began smelling different perfumes. My three favorite kinds of scents ended up being floral, fruity, and woody. I picked out a perfume bottle I liked that was a combination of those three kinds of scents, sprayed some on my neck, rubbed it in, and looked at myself in the mirror. Aside from my little orange dress, I was completely transformed.

"Can I look like this all the time?" I asked Master Anko, brightening and looking over myself.

"… Yeah," she said, smirking behind me in the mirror in satisfaction. "I think you can. The best part? Your hair is practical, too. Only women it's dangerous to get within ten feet of can afford to let their hair hang long and loose in the field. And trust me when I say you're not there yet."

-

When the kimono came in, Anko showed them all to me. "They're _beautiful,"_ I whispered, running my hands over them.

"They're yours." She smiled down at me. "But only for special occasions, okay?"

She helped me dress in one in the dance hall mirror for the first time.

"You're right," I admitted, wincing. "It _is_ heavier. I've been feeling different lately, though," I admitted.

"Yeah? In what way?" she said, still tying the obi.

"Well… I used to not even care if I washed my face or brushed my teeth before I left the house in the morning," I admitted. "But now that I have a whole hair and cosmetics routine, it makes me want to… care more. I shower every day, and I buy myself nice shower gels, and… I exfoliate my face! I didn't even know what that _meant_ a couple of weeks ago!" I said in amazement.

"Yeah," Anko chuckled, standing straight. "I think that's all part of becoming a girl.

"Now. Let's get to dancing."

I straightened and saluted. "Ma'am, yes, ma'am! What do we do first?"

"First — you have to watch," said Anko. "Because I am going to demonstrate for you an example of each of the two types of traditional dancing you will be learning."

"Two types?" I tilted my head.

"The first is earth-based. It twists close to the ground and involves folding fans," said Anko. "The second is air and sky-based. It involves lots of leaps upwards into the air, and lots of acrobatics. The two styles — Earth and Sky — have one thing in common, which is that by the time you graduate at twelve, you should be able to do either kind of dance with a porcelain vase balanced on your head. And it should never fall for the entire dance."

And then I watched in amazement as Anko turned on some traditional orchestra music on a stereo set — twanging strings and beating drums and singing voices — and she got started.

Anko danced two dances. For her Earth dance, she told the story of a goddess come down from the clouds to smite some unruly humans with her wrath. For her Sky dance, she told the story of a high priestess making a bridge from sky to earth so two lovers could be together even beyond death. Earth dancing was mesmerizing, involving twists close to the earth and shimmering folding fans. But Sky dancing had a wow factor, with liberal acrobatic jumps into the air, as if the dancer were trying to kick a hole in the sky. Brightly colored kimono flew.

They were both amazing — just in different ways.

Once Anko finished, breathing hard, she turned off the music.

"As you can see," she said, "even as a trained shinobi, I'm short of breath. Anyone who doesn't think doing Earth and Sky dancing under the weight of a kimono and obi is physically demanding… has obviously never tried it.

"A few things to notice.

"First, the songs all tell stories, and the dances accompany those songs. So your job, in the dance, is to tell a story — always with a kind of folktale feel or theme to it. That is why this counts as a seductive art. It's not just about the movements. Those are universal. This is individualized through _storytelling._ Different stories and different female leading roles suit different people better.

"Earth and Sky dancing are obviously very different. You can see the differences for yourself. This fan was my first fan — and now it's yours." She smiled as she handed it over. I looked down at it as I took it, and then back up at her in delight. "These fans are called _sensu._ My first was simple — dark with a cherry blossom petal pattern — but…"

 _"Thank you,"_ I said, awed and touched, staring down at the sensu fan as I cradled it in my hands.

She laughed. "You're welcome," she said. "As you become a better dancer, you'll collect more of them. You will master both Earth and Sky dancing. And that, incidentally, is why many failed kunoichi end up becoming geisha. All of this training — the traditional dancing, the kimono, the tea ceremony, the ikebana — it's all very important to geisha training as well."

I looked up. "I'm not going to fail!" I said, determined.

She smirked. "That's the kind of fired-up attitude I like to see. That's one of the reasons I like you, kid," she said "Now. We have to decide what types of dancing roles suit you best. So… think about what you know of folktales traditional to our culture. There are… for example, forest spirits."

"What do those entail?" I asked.

"Well — usually, they're filled with a sense of _wabi._ This is a term," she explained patiently at my confused look, "that means roughly 'something that is more beautiful because it cannot last.' It is why we say that a moon half-obscured by clouds is more beautiful than a full moon, or a dying flower is more beautiful than a bright one, or a cracked vase is more beautiful than an unmarked one. Wabi stories are stories that are sad, quiet, soft, and bittersweet. Most forest spirits feature in folktales like this."

"Doesn't sound like my thing," I admitted, shaking my head. "I'm thinking of something… brighter, more modern."

"Yeah, I see what you mean," she said, nodding. "Okay, well… There is the girl determined to get an education in the face of all opposition." I shook my head. "Or the princess who wants to marry the stranger in the face of her father's wishes. Or… well, there is the ultimate rebellion," Anko mused.

"What do you mean?" I asked, tilting my head.

"There is a whole wealth of dancing stories," said Anko, her eyes sparking mischievously, "revolving around the woman who pretends to be a man so she can join the military and become a _warrior."_

"Yes!" I shouted immediately, pointing. "Yes, that's me!"

Anko laughed. "The archetype dancing role encompasses humor — clumsy awkwardness. It encompasses fire — battle scenes. And usually it involves a love story, the best kind, based on mutual respect between two equal fighters."

"That's mine," I decided, bowing to Anko. "Please teach me! Please, please, please!"

"All right," said Anko. "And we will actually never be making dance a small part of your daily studies. Dancing is such a big thing to learn — even in this two-style traditional form — that until you graduate, it will always play a major part in your daily studies, even as we move on to other things. From here, we move into more modern seductive arts — but traditional dance will always play an important part in your studies.

"So." Anko's eyes sparked. "Let's get started."

A few minutes later, we were out there on the floor in kimono, practicing together. I was flushed, smiling, delighted. That feeling of pumping physical energy into my muscles, of channeling my strength into different movements, one flowing into the next —

It was what I had signed up for. It was what this was, in the end, all about.

I liked everything I had learned so far. I discovered that day that I _loved_ dancing.


	4. Art As We Think Of It

Chapter Four: Art As We Think Of It

"I will be introducing you to your next two arts together," said Anko, "and these are more modern."

She led me from the classroom to the dance studio. "You will be learning modern dancing — actually, it's a mixture of ballet and freestyle modern. And then you will be learning…" She led me out of the dance studio, through the classroom, and into another room. She smiled as she flung open the door. "… Figure skating."

I was awed as I looked over an entire indoor ice skating rink.

"I am introducing you to these two arts together," said Anko, "because how we individualize them as arts kind of play into each other. You will individualize here in the kinds of movements you specialize in. Okay? With traditional dancing, this was not possible. Because traditional dances tell stories, each movement is rigidly prescribed.

"But modern dancing and ice skating are much more freestyle. You can choose what kinds of movements suit you during the skate or the dance. So in these first weeks of practice, we are going to find the kinds of movements you can do best and best personify."

And so over the following weeks, we got started.

I was at this point learning three different physical arts at once: Traditional dance, modernistic ballet dance, and figure skating. I was sore all the time, and my body became leaner and more graceful and muscled. I also learned these kinds of movements before I learned hand to hand fighting, which meant I probably moved differently and more fluidly than I might have as a boy.

I figure out slowly over time that I specialized in sharp spurts of acrobatic, leaping, surprising moves. I would be going along, dancing or skating fluidly and gently, and then I would suddenly arc out in dramatic, acrobatic spurts of movement.

"That's where your specialty lies," said Anko, "so that's what we'll be focusing on."

Like traditional dance, modern dance and figure skating never faded into the background. All three became an important part of my daily routine.

-

"You will learn brief theater sketches with you as the star," said Anko, standing out in the middle of the classroom, which had been cleared of desks. "I will be teaching you acting, but first I wanted you to get some streaming accounts and decide what kind of TV you liked — particularly what kinds of sketches you would be most interested in trying to do yourself."

"I was interested by a lot of… emotionally complicated roles. Characters where you weren't quite sure what to think of them, and… TV that made you think," I said thoughtfully. "Social dramas, I guess. And then I'm interested in doing comedy — particularly the spunky, spirited underdog with a happy ending kind of female lead story."

"Okay," said Anko. "Let's start you out with the basics of acting and improv. Then that will fade into the background and become a small part of your daily routine. One bonus: Being a ninja sometimes necessitates lying. This will teach you how to do that effectively."

-

"For this next bit, we'll be working in here," said Anko, and she led me into an anteroom that seemed to be a mini recording studio. It had different instruments in various corners, and a microphone. "You will be learning music and singing.

"Now, what Konoha requires is that you learn to sing, you learn to compose, and you learn one instrument — an instrument of your choice."

"I'm interested in the guitar," I said.

"Okay," said Anko. "I'll order Konoha to buy you one of those though my shinobi account. Nobody ever said having a student was inexpensive. In the meantime, let's see what your vocal range is."

She sat down at the piano, started pressing keys, and took me through a wide range of notes. I had to sing along to each key she pressed. I did better on some than on others.

"You have a higher, sweeter vocal range," she said, making a note on a piece of paper beside the piano. "That's good! Very traditionally attractive!"

I smiled.

"Now. I asked you to explore music buying and music streaming services, and find your favorite kinds of music. Do you have any results for me?"

"I found I like a lot of pop music," I said, wincing. "Is that… a bad thing?"

"No," she said in surprise. "Especially with your vocal range, that would work very well.

"Okay. On that auspicious note, let's get started."

-

"Writing and composing interlink, so we're starting writing next," said Anko, as we were sitting at our conjoined desks in the classroom again. "Konoha requires that all kunoichi arts practitioners be experts in the art of poetry — actually good poetry, the kind people won't laugh at.

"So I'm going to give you some prompts, you're going to write some poems, and we will find your voice slowly over time. That's the only way to really learn with writing — by _doing._ And then also by having life experiences. How many geniuses of writing have you ever heard of?"

"None," I realized, frowning.

"Yeah. Because there aren't any," said Anko. "Every writer only gets better with time."

"I like that," I decided thoughtfully.

"Exactly. So are you ready? Let's get started."

I began forging into the land of writing poems — having them critiqued by Anko, and then rewriting them. I found I had a very down to earth voice — easy to understand — and I was very good at storytelling, especially in its more emotional forms. I was learning more and more about myself.

Under Anko's influence, I had also begun buying books. I didn't have one steady genre there. I loved all kinds of books. I was slowly learning that… surprisingly? I actually _loved_ reading.

-

Drawing and painting, I also did at our conjoined desks. "Art is similar to writing in one way," Anko admitted. "Just start doing it. It's the only way to get better — and also the only way to find your voice.

"Remember that art is about shapes. Each drawing or painting is just trying to emulate a series of increasingly complex shapes. Everything has a shape — your face. That desk. Everything you're imagining in your mind.

"It is all made up… of shapes. Practice shapes… become better at art."

I spent long hours even at home in my apartment practicing shaping with drawing and painting. I spent even more time with Anko in the classroom, coming up with different concepts and seeing what my forming style was turning out to be.

Take one of her prompts, for example.

"You have to seduce a vicious, unsavory character," she said. "One who enjoys stalking his prey."

I decided to paint and draw what ended up being a very literal, metaphorical scene — of a timid little woman, shy and naked, surrounded by shadows with dark, open, sharp-toothed mouths.

"Both imaginative," said Anko thoughtfully, "and metaphorical, and more grounded in realism than in abstraction. It's a very commercially appealing style."

I was slowly discovering more and more about myself.

-

"We're getting towards the end of your kunoichi arts introductions," said Anko. "Some of the last three physical, actual arts you will be introduced to are coming up next." She smirked. "Some practitioners call them The Wife Arts. Sexists have a field day."

"Why?" I said curiously.

"Because they are fashion, cooking and baking, and interior decorating."


End file.
